The panorama represents the combined effort of two Spitzer survey teams, who used two of the telescope's onboard instruments, the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) and the Multiband Imaging Photometer.

The large image was made from stitching together 800,000 individual pictures taken by Spitzer, for a total of 2.5 billion infrared pixels. It covers an area of the sky about as wide as a pointer finger and as long as the length of arms outstretched, which might sound small, but covers about half of the entire galaxy, says Robert Hurt, of the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech.

Just another friendly reminder that our entire lives are insignificant and that none of us will ever know one iota of the true mysteries of the universe that we live in. Happy Friday! [Space.com via The Daily What]

Click on the images to zoom in

This new six-by-three-foot multi-wavelength image combines three visions of the Milky Way's center: A near-infrared image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and an X-ray vision from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

It was created to commemorate the International Year of Astronomy, which marks 400 years since a curioser and curioser man called Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope to the truth out there, back in 1609. [NASA]

The ring hasn't been discovered till now because it's so diffuse that it reflects very little sunlight. That makes it undetectable by optical telescopes. The particles in it, however, glow with heat radiation, which was captured by the Spitzer's infrared instruments.

This image is an artist representation of what Spitzer's discovered, showing us, once again, that we are still bloody clueless when it comes to almost everything around us. I can't wait to see the actual image. [NASA]

The Finnish press got a hold of a few text gems sent by the minister, including this vague pick up line that may or may not be related to musical waterbeds: "Would you like to do it in an exotic place? Where could it be?" When asked if 'it' meant sex, Kanerva said it was obvious that the message was an answer to an earlier inquiry from Tukiainen.

We at Gizmodo are inclined to believe the minister; he was probably referring to their upcoming coffeehouse debate about the subtle differences between the Centre Party of Finland and the more even-handed (although no less capable) approach to governing taken by the National Coalition Party. Or maybe he was just trying to get laid with the exotic dancer, and her sister. We think her name's Debra.

[HELSINGIN SANOMAT]